Arpi Avetisyan

[1]

Senior Litigation Officer

Phone: +32 2 609 56 56

Arpi is responsible for ILGA-Europe’s litigation activities. She works with ILGA-Europe members and partners to develop and implement strategies for using litigation to protect human rights of LGBTI people across Europe. Her tasks include conducting international and comparative law research, drafting case submissions and third party interventions to the European Court of Human Rights. Arpi ensures effective coordination among organisations engaged in litigation related to the human rights of LGBTI people at European level. She provides capacity development to LGBTI groups to engage in strategic litigation in Europe, and for mobilising resources to support LGBTI litigation at national and European levels.

Background

Arpi is an international human rights lawyer with over 15 years of experience in research, publication, advocacy, capacity development, and litigation before the European Court. Arpi started her career coordinating the CEDAW Promotion Campaign Project in Armenia and submitting a Shadow Report to the UN CEDAW Committee, before moving on to work for Democracy Today NGO, founded and led by the UN Special Rapporteur on Contemporary Forms of Slavery, Gulnara Shaninian. She also provided research assistance to the UN Special Rapporteur on the Right to Health, Professor Paul Hunt, in support of his mandate. As a Legal Adviser at INTERIGHTS in London she provided litigation advice to NGOs in former Soviet Union and Central and Eastern Europe and submitted strategically significant cases to the European Court. In her time at INTERIGHTS Arpi developed several Guidance Manuals for Lawyers on the European Convention articles, including Article 8 (Right to Respect for Private and Family Life), Article 11[2] (Freedom of Association and Assembly) and Article 14 [3](Prohibition of Discrimination). Prior to joining ILGA-Europe, Arpi managed a capacity building project on human rights strategic litigation in Kosovo in collaboration with the Civil Rights Defenders[4].

Arpi holds a BA in Sociology (2001) and MA in Conflictology (2003) from Yerevan State University, Armenia; and LLM in International Human Rights Law from the University of Essex, UK (2006).